Hotel and catering industry calls for more chefs

A recruitment report has found that chefs are in short supply in the hotel and catering industry, despite the low demand for other permanent staff

The hotel and catering industry is calling out for more chefs to apply for job vacancies, as a recruitment report finds them in short supply for both permanent and temporary positions.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation​ and KPMG​ Report on Jobs, found that while the demand for permanent staff in the hotel and catering sector was low throughout September, the demand for chefs, in both permanent and temporary positions, was high.

Richard Hathaway, head of Travel Leisure and Tourism at KPMG, said chefs 'appeared to have the pick of vacancies’, despite demand for other staff in the industry continuing to diverge.

“Temporary staff are in demand, with temporary vacancies experiencing one of the fastest rates of growth in September, but demand for permanent staff has had one of the sharpest declines across all the sectors surveyed,” he said. “These findings reflect the flexibility the hotel and catering sector needs, to manage staffing costs effectively during the downturn. But chefs are still in short supply across the board.”

The report also found the growth rate of staff availability was beginning to ease off, suggesting the ‘most intense phase’ of redundancies has passed.